Welcome to the ongoing saga of my new life in Italy. Starting with an innocent masters program in gastronomic science, I was seduced subsequently into the dream of making a fine wine in the Marche. It's a work in progress, welcome to the story of Nascondiglio di Bacco,

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

17 nov. 2009The sheep have returned to our area to graze and Bacco has proudly brought 2 skinned lambs up to the B and B. I am hoping they were gifted by the shepherd! Yesterday, I finally felt up to pruning after catching a rhinovirus from all the trains, planes, trams and buses I rode to get to, from and around Prague. The H1N1 hype is also here in Italy although I am not sure it can find Le Marche.I had some old and new friends visit over the weekend before they took off for an Adriatic and Mediterranean cruise: the Prices and Crows. I was able to show them around a bit although 2 days is too short to see a lot. We had beautiful weather and views from Ripatransone, Offida's Santa Maria della Rocca and right here at Nascondiglio di Bacco. They tried olive all'ascolane and saw Ascoli Piceno before heading back up to Venice.This morning and last night were densely foggy, which interfered with my Leonid meteor shower viewing, but left our spider webs glistening with water droplets. A good enough exchange.Raffaele just got back from a visit to Tuscany with friends and he was excited to have shared lunch with the Fonz! There are myriad pix, filmettes and who knows what else and you can find them on the www.nascondigliodibacco.blogspot.com blog.More pruning ahead as I need to finish up the 100 trees before I return to the states. The next few days we will have Dustin Hoffman in the area doing a publicity tour for our region. I hope in some way the ads get to the states.Finally, I introduced Raffaele to some good old comfort food from the USA. I made homemade fries to go under my chili with some smoked cheese on top. It makes me hungry again today just to look at my pic.The other pictures are this mornings arachnid art show including one of the artist protaginists and our new ovine neighbors in the distance.d